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box we buried so my work is through now.'
'You mean that they will dig here some day, in the future?' Troy nodded. 'In
order to find out what happened to you after you made your journey through
time? My lord, you are a conscientious fellow.
You'll be long dead before your report is read.'
'That doesn't matter. I've done as promised. Finished the assignment and
delivered my report.'
'I gather that there is no chance of your putting it under your arm and
returning with it yourself?'
'None. This is a one-way trip. I knew that when I came. I have no regrets. I
accomplished what I set out to do. I think it was worth it.'
'I couldn't agree more. Though I'm not sure that I would have been able to
make the decision that you did. But that part is finished. Do you know what
you will do next?'
'I certainly do. I'm going to leave the South and head north, to New York
City. That's my home town and I have an immense curiosity to see what it is
like now.'
'Sodom and Gomorrah,' Shaw said distastefully. 'A world unto itself and a
pretty nasty one at that. The most corrupt and wicked city in the world. There
is either a riot or a plague there every year.'
'Sounds like home,' Troy said. 'Let's go look at it. Will you come with me?'
'Of a certainty. I plan nothing strenuous until my wounds are fully healed. If
I must recover it should be in the lap of luxury provided by Mammon on Hudson.
But no more horses. We'll take the train.'
It was a slow and filthy trip, with greasy cinders leaking in around the
windows and settling on everything.
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In New York they were more than ready to take a cab to the hotel and a hot
bath. After three days of nothing more strenuous than eating large meals and
sleeping late, Shaw ventured the opinion that he was fit enough to climb into
a saddle again. They rented horses from a livery stable on Twenty-third Street
in
Manhattan, then rode down to Houston Street to board the ferry across the East
River. Except for the lack of bridges, Troy was amazed at how familiar the
city was. No skyscrapers of course, and horses instead of cars, but the
streets and the buildings on the East Side here were very much the same as the
ones he remembered. Brooklyn was a warren of small homes, and it wasn't until
they crossed into
Queens that there were any marked changes. The houses gave way to farms and
twisting country roads.
They rode easily, stopping for lunch in a Corona inn, then carrying on.
An hour later Troy halted at the top of a hill that looked down upon the
crossroads village of Jamaica.
There were farms all around, and beyond them the swamps and rushes of Jamaica
Bay. He shook his head.
'I was born right down there,' he said. 'Grew up here. It was all small
houses, the Van Wyck Expressway there, and the el along Jamaica Avenue.'
'El?'
'Yes, the el train, the elevated railroad, you know.'
'No, I don't, but it sounds like an interesting idea.'
'Noisy. Cold as hell in winter when the doors open at the stations. Snow blows
in. What am I doing here, Robbie? I don't belong here.' Suddenly depressed, he
pulled the horse about and dug his heels into its sides. 'Let's get back to
that inn. I need some strong drink.'
Shaw galloped to catch up with him, then they slowed and rode along side by
side. He looked at Troy, at his fixed gaze, and knew that he was not seeing
the road and the trees ahead but was looking at a world forever lost, one he
could never possibly see again. Shaw leaned over and placed his hand over
Troy's where it rested on the pommel of the saddle. Troy turned to look at him
then, and the depths of despair in his eyes were profound beyond belief. Then
a trace of a smile touched his lips and some of the
darkness slipped away.
'You're a good man, Robbie Shaw, and it has been my pleasure to make your
acquaintance. Now let us get back to Manhattan and enjoy ourselves. We need a
bang-up dinner with bottles and bottles of good wine. After that we are going
to the theatre. We are going to celebrate and have a good time while we can.
Because all of this is going to end soon. There is war over the horizon. A
most deadly war of brother against brother that is going to tear this country
apart. So now we are going to enjoy ourselves and then we are going to part. I
hope to meet up with you again, but I don't know where or when.'
'You make it sound so final. What do you intend to do?'
'What I do best. I'm going to try to enlist in the Army. That war is coming
and nothing will stop it. You and the other abolitionists fought your
peacetime war against slavery, but that period is coming to an end.
In the not too distant future the shooting war will begin.
'It is going to be a long, long time before it ends.'
Chapter 36
JULY 1, 1863
The water had been freshly boiled and was still warm when Troy poured it over
his arm. It burned painfully and it washed the open shrapnel wound and started
the freshly-clotted blood flowing again. The jagged cut wasn't deep, but it
was painful, and Troy gritted his teeth as he swabbed it clean. His
antibiotics were gone, used up on the wounded during the years of fighting, so
the boiled water would have to do. The length of bandage had been boiled too,
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and he wrapped it around his arm until the wound was covered. This last effort
on top of the fatigue of battle had brought him to the edge of exhaustion; he
leaned back against the bole of the tree, eyes closed, arms draped limply
across his knees, more asleep than awake as confused memories tumbled through
his tired brain.
How quickly the years had gone by, yet how slowly as well. So much had
happened since that day when he had said good-bye to Robbie Shaw in New York.
He had quickly discovered that his idea of enlisting in the army had not been
as easy as he had planned. Black men were not wanted except as servants or
ditch-diggers. He would not settle for that. It had taken a year of hard work,
and all of McCulloch's money, to organize the first Negro battalion in Boston,
The First Regiment of Massachusetts Coloured
Volunteers. The amount spent lobbying and bribing the city fathers had been
almost as large as that spent on equipment. But he had done it, that was what
counted. When the war began they had been ready.
And they had fought oh how they had fought! and died as well. Yet there had
been no shortage of volunteers. In a little over two years of battle they had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]